


to the victor goes the sorrow

by prussianblues



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, And coffee, F/M, Female Jon Snow, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, R Plus L Equals J, Save Me, all i've eaten today is a lara bar a cup of oatmeal and some yogurt, don't forget the coffee, don't make me regret this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17817020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prussianblues/pseuds/prussianblues
Summary: Joanna Baratheon is the winner of the fiftieth Hunger Games.





	to the victor goes the sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> It won't leave me alone. :(((((
> 
> I haven't read The Hunger Games in three years so anything that doesn't line up with the trilogy... is just going to stay that way.

Tyrek does not fall to the ground. He falls onto her, his body jerking, in what Joanna dimly thinks may be the gods’ way of telling her she should have been the one to die. Who knows if they’re right? She is so tired, too tired to move, and so she stays where she is, under him. It has been two weeks since she has had a moment of peace, and Joanna can no longer muster up the energy to care what happens.

She has won, after all. She has done her part.

They proclaim her the winner, trumpets blaring, and people swarm around her. Tyrek’s body is lifted from her, then someone shoves a needle into her and she knows nothing more.

* * *

Sleep is sweet, but it doesn’t last.

Soon enough Joanna finds herself propped up on a bed in a hospital room, Barbrey Dustin sitting at her bedside. The woman, dressed in a sleek, slate-grey pantsuit, stares at her for a very long time before speaking.

“You’re a quick study, Stark,” she says.

Nineteen years ago, Barbrey Dustin won her Games by beheading one of the female tributes from District One, but that’s not what she’s known for. Nineteen years ago, Barbrey Dustin lost her virginity to Brandon Stark during her Games, on camera, and the world has not forgotten.

_Put on a show,_ Barbrey told her and Myranda the night before they went into the arena. By the gods, Joanna listened to her. She feels ashamed. “I did what I had to.”

“I know.”

* * *

 

Joanna sits very still as she watches the screen in front of her.

She watches herself wave at a captive audience while riding a chariot through the streets of King’s Landing. The dress she wears—the dress she wore—is white and short. It looks like snow draping over her. The dress she wears now, however, is long and transparent, strategically-placed white lace keeping her decent (per the _Crownlands’_ standard, not her own).

The scene switches to her first interview with Margaery Tyrell, where the woman prodded her for information on her nonexistent love life. Then the camera sweeps into the arena, where Joanna braved the bloodbath for long enough to steal a backpack and some knives before running for the hills. A montage of her running, resting, walking, resting and running follows. It switches to Tyrek, and this she hasn’t seen. The four Westernlander careers decide to go hunting, then split into groups of two. Tyrek stumbles into a Vale trio. Two out of the three die, but Tyrek’s partner gets taken out by an arrow and Tyrek himself crawls away before collapsing in a heap, only for Joanna to find him hours later.

This Joanna remembers. When she came across him, after days of doing nothing but surviving and barely sleeping out of fear, staring up at the night to see the faces of the dead tributes, she saw an _opportunity. A show,_ Barbrey said to her. She’d given them a show, and more.

She watches herself drag Tyrek into a cave and nurse him back to health. The way the footage is edited makes the tension on the screen palpable. Her reaction when the Gamemakers announced that two tributes would be allowed to survive this year was to kiss Tyrek, not for the first time. She had had so much hope then, that maybe she would survive the Games with her conscience mostly intact, but that was a foolish thought.

Joanna is not a fundamentally foolish person. She had sworn undying love—after having sex with a Lannister in front of thousands of people, of all things—but she never meant it. It had been for survival’s sake. She braces herself. _Any minute now,_ she thinks, _any minute now they’ll show it._

The camera changes to her and Tyrek sneaking down the jungle a mere few days before the end, and Joanna blinks. They _didn’t_ show it, Joanna is sure, but she’s confused why. The scenes flit together, tribute after tribute dying, until the second-to-last falls, and Tyrek turns to Joanna to kiss her. When they pull apart, he looks around, and the announcement that there can only be one winner plunges them into silence.

“Kill me,” Joanna says on the screen, her eyes welling with tears that weren’t fake. She had been certain she would die, even if she had every intention of attempting to fight for the win.

“No,” Tyrek said just a few days ago, surprising her, and he had rushed to take her into his arms… only for Joanna to plunge a knife onto his back.

Joanna closes her eyes.

* * *

The Crown Prince is waiting for her in her rooms.

“You’re the Head Gamemaker,” she hisses accusingly before she can bite her tongue. _Was lying about more than one tribute surviving his idea?_

“Yes,” Rhaegar Targaryen says, and she realizes she spoke out loud.

“It was cruel.”

“Necessary.” He walks up to her, still standing by the door. He studies her for a second, his gaze penetrating. Joanna feels like he’s looking for something, but she doesn’t know what. “I’m here because… I want you to know you’re safe now.”

Joanna looks incredulously. Of course she’s safe. She’s no longer in the arena.

Rhaegar gives her a grimace. “If anyone bothers you, don’t hesitate to call me… Joanna. I’ve left my personal number on your phone.”

“I—” _Don’t need you help,_ she wants to say, but she can’t. “I’m thankful.”

He grabs her shoulder and squeezes, but she cringes away.

* * *

Joanna’s mother rushes up to her as soon as she steps off the train.

“Sweetling!”

“Mama,” Joanna mouths into her hair. Lyanna’s arms are around Joanna, her mother’s wet face buried in the crook of her neck. “Mama,” she whispers, her knees feeling like they’ll buckle. “I came back.”

“You did, sweetling. Let’s go home now.”

The crowds part for them, looking at Joanna with unabashed curiosity, but most remain at the sidelines. She gives a waving child a small smile before her mother and father whisk her away. They head home, to the ritziest part of the District, where they settled when her father became mayor ten years ago.

“It’s all over now,” Robert Baratheon says over dinner—her favorite—his eyes tired.

“Hopefully,” Lyanna murmurs.

* * *

The nightmares plague her at night. She screams and screams for days on end, now that she doesn’t have access to the fancy sleeping drugs the King’s Landing Maesters dozed her with. When Uncle Ned comes to visit her a week after her arrival, the bags underneath her eyes look a bruised purple.

“Hello, Uncle,” she says, unsure.

“Joanna,” he says back, and something about the way he says her name makes her walk up to him and kiss his cheek.

“You came alone?” He wasn’t there yesterday at the train station, and he had not come over for dinner. Neither had any of her cousins. She had convinced herself, before stepping out in the snow back then, that she didn’t expect them to be there, but when she hadn’t found them there, she’d been shocked and hurt despite everything.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Did… no one else want to come?”

“It’s a difficult time,” Ned says. “Cat is very emotional, after…” He clears his throat. “She made you something.” He motions to the brown bag sitting on an armchair. “Open it.”

She does, finding a pretty grey coat with white wolves embellished on the sleeves and lapels, rows of crystals over the length of it. “It’s beautiful, Uncle Ned. Tell her thank you. And sorry.”

Uncle Ned nods at her before taking his leave. She shrugs on the coat, twirling in a mirror, and goes out to make the trek to the Victor’s village. She has been given house number four, the one her grandfather vacated when he died. Barbrey Dustin is sitting on the steps of number six when she looks around. Tormund Giantsbane and Val Rayder are having a very conspicuous chat on the porch of number eight. Harrold Karstark is shoveling snow at a snail’s pace. Wendel Manderly doesn’t even bother to pretend he’s not staring at her.

_It seems everyone wanted to get a look at me,_ Joanna thinks, but she slams the door behind her and doesn’t answer the bell when it rings. _I don’t want to hear it._

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't leaving me alone and I want to finish it before I lose all my inspiration. I don't know where this is going beyond chapter 2 so... I would _really_ appreciate everyone telling me where you'd like this to go. Also, my usual partner-in-crime doesn't like THG and hasn't read it, so she can't beta for me. So please, I **_NEED_** a beta. Leave a comment here or message me at @aegonuncrowned on tumblr.
> 
> can we all please appreciate how i have the self-control of a gnat. i started writing this twenty-one hours ago and i'm already posting it because i don't know what to DO with chapter 3.


End file.
